Record US Imports Meet an 11% Blank-Sailing Squeeze, and It Is Showing Up in Factory Prices

The busiest import month of the year is arriving at the worst possible moment for shippers. The National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates forecast 2.31 million TEUs of US container imports for September 2026 in their Global Port Tracker report published September 10, which would make it the heaviest month of the year and a 9.6 percent gain over September 2025. In the same week, Drewry's World Container Index assessed the Shanghai to New York lane at $10,394 per 40-foot container on September 18, up 7 percent week over week and above the $10,000 mark for the first time since July 2022. Record demand is meeting a schedule that carriers have deliberately shrunk, and the squeeze is now f…